Conventional economy brand caulking guns are generally manual trigger-operated devices incorporating a unidirectional gripping assembly which urges a piston rod forward to eject the compound from a cartridge. One such prior art caulk gun is set forth in FIG. 1. This is a lightweight, skeleton-frame caulking gun designed to receive and carry a disposable caulk cartridge 20. The gripping assembly employs trigger-grip handles which are generally formed of stamped metal plate (as much of the rest of the gun) for manufacturing economy. The operator only has two hands; one holds the ladder and the other holds the caulking gun at the handle. The spread of the handles at the starting position can require a fairly broad grip, and a firm broad grip can be exceedingly difficult to achieve when the fingers and palm are only in contact with the painted or anodized metal trigger-grip handles. This is especially true when the user has smaller hands, as is often the case with female operators, during rainy or wet conditions, and in hot and sweaty conditions. Just a momentary slippage may result in a poor line of caulk and/or dropping the gun. When dropped from a scaffolding or ladder the potential for damage or injury is evident.
The trigger grips should be sure enough to keep the gun under as much control as possible under any kind of condition. This means that whether one's hand is wet or sweaty the trigger grips should not slip from one's grasp during use. The foregoing can be achieved by a better choice of grip materials. Some operators attempt to solve the problem in a do-it-yourself fashion by cutting a bicycle inner tube or rubber pads to fit the trigger grips, but this results in an aesthetically poor looking caulk gun with rubber handle elements that frequently slip off or come unbonded.
It would be far more advantageous to provide a caulking gun with sure-grip trigger handles that establish a good, non-slip, contoured gripping surface that conforms to the hand, thereby improving the grip even in wet conditions and improving comfort during hard, extended use. Others have devised rubberized handles in other context, such as bicycles (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,775). However, there are no known efforts to incorporate a rubber gripping feature in the context of a caulk gun trigger mechanism.